24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
They walk through life holding hands,
making each other laugh,
building each other up,
catching each other as they fall;
writing notes for the other to find.
They live a cliché.
And wouldn’t change it for the world.
She writes romance novels, inspired by her own.
He builds houses, his foundations based on theirs.
She won’t give up on him.
He won’t let go when her depression comes back.
“It’s the dream,” the writer says as she sets down her pen.
For fifteen years I did my best
To honor all those vows
We shared before Goddess and man
But I had to get out
He had a mistress those last few years
And I could not compete
When I tried to intervene
He’d knock me off my feet
Her name was Alcohol, and I
Had to make a choice
To survive or lay down and die
I had to find my voice
So I filed all the paperwork
That said this all ends here
And every vow that came before
Just had to disappear
Divorce became my saving grace
It’s how I did survive
And two years later I got the call
That I was the only one alive
I barely heard the coroner
When she told me he was gone
I just hoped he’d found some peace
Wherever he’d moved on
So, for me, those vows they preach
When they join two souls together
Were only hollow promises
That couldn’t last forever
And people rarely understand
The grief I carry with me
For the man he was before the bottle
Made us both so empty.
~Mandy Kocsis©2023~
A cute enterprising couple
Decided to join lives
They got along very well
So their futures they combined.
They had a lavish ceremony
Where they said, “I do!”
They traveled home together
Lined up their varied shoes.
Each day was spent with lots of love
They talked, they laughed, they cried.
In blissful matrimony,
They took it all in stride.
As the years passed, the children came
The couple grew in sync
They watched with pride as their family spread
Welcoming each new link.
This cute enterprising couple
Learned in life there are some facts.
If you live and love together
Multiples lives you will impact.
it is an institution that has outlived our purposes
possibly
but we are dreamers, are we not?
perhaps, though, we are ready to give up on the illusion
that there is more than a middlin’ chance of survival,
of true love, of a forever love, of a lifetime commitment
and of monogamy in general
but have we given up on the entire notion
of growing old together?
One day in distant future
Ice walls walled in our pride
The few of us remaining
And hiding deep inside
An igloo city of the ancients
Built by those who burned our world
After they at least reflected
And leaned into saving Gaia
“Now ye who gathered”
Yon priest declared
“Truly are blessed by piety
Beloved by our icy dirty
Who saved us from the sun
And hubris of our fathers…”
I could not scarcely listen
For the melting had begun
Bless the Sonicare toothbrush
and the dark oils from my hand
smudging the white plastic. Bless this
Pike Place Market cup I bought at a yard sale
for 25ȼ because the handle was cracked.
Bless Super Glue that fixes cracks
and the ashtray I made in high school
ceramics that I dropped in my 20s.
Bless the Pantene 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner
that streamlines my shower and the soft
quick-dry turquoise towel that touches me
head to toe. Bless the stretchy New Balance
black shorts I slip into and have for close to 10 years,
the ones with the built-in briefs so I can
be commando, free of extra elastic of briefs, the shorts
I’ve searched to replace on Amazon and Ebay
with no luck. Bless the 80% cotton t-shirt with turquoise
rain cloud on the chest I pull over my head.
Bless the Berber carpet, installed 20 years ago,
for padding the floors softly as I walk
down the hall to the kitchen for coffee
and for holding on for another few years.
Bless the Keurig coffee maker for the squeals
it makes with my morning cup, careless
of the waste it sends through my hands
to the landfill. Bless my daughter for
surviving the pain she suffered when I left her
with her dad for 8 months that she calls a year
because it was so longer for her than for me and for
loving her mother despite it. Bless all the little fawns
in the forests who wait under shrubs
for their moms to come back.
My father takes photos of birds for me now,
He sends them to me from wherever he is,
And the distance doesn’t feel so great.
Pyrrhuloxia, I tell him, when he captures its beauty on screen,
The dusty red bringing me close to the desert.
White pelicans, he tells me,
When he sends me another.
Tears sting my eyes,
Not in the doing, but the remembering,
The missing,
Running through fields,
Chasing the haunting call of a snipe,
Trying to spot it as the light diminished.
Spending time finding ring-necked pheasants,
Teenaged quail and excited robin mothers,
Pointing, laughing at frigatebirds on the sandy beaches of Mexico.
musings on light
how could they know?
this glimpse into the heart of us-
a window to the places warmer
than who you are to me now,
in the chapel of our discontent…
your discontent…
my in ability to be what you needed me to be
for you to be who you could never be
so we could agree on nothing.
all these glowing meditations on…
maybe on light but nothing else…
chokes me with splinters
where words once breathed
and smelled of winter.
(C) r. l. elke
Our friendship started in a sticky way,
A polite yet firm debate on who could buy the last fudge in the shop.
To win here is to lose, so common curtesy said he should buy
And we should share.
Fudge led to children, led to differentiated paths,
“become myself” the imperative for both.
Yet to grow unique, to grow apart only brought us closer.
In celebration, we went to buy a cemetery plot.
If we come together
link our finances, our
fatigue with this world, our
hope for something better for
our kids, how can this
be a bad thing?